Carnival of Homeschool Parents

Friday, May 27, 2016

The other day I was reading around Facebook. After reading about a few people praying to their god for an end to cancer, some people talking about how their crises are meant to be, a few people referring to various energies, divine paths, one prayer circle, god's plans for someone, etc etc etc, you know what I'm talking about, I felt the need to do something to put palatable, informing, relatable science out there.

The largest percentage of my FB friends are atheists, freethinkers, humanists of all sorts who don't post rubbish of that nature but as I was reading the other day I felt all icky. ICKY and disgusted by the pseudoscience and religious rot that so many people spread around on their accounts.

A moment of Science

Of course they are welcome to post whatever they want and I can unfriend or hide people all I want. But I started to think that I needed to do more.

I started thinking about what I felt the need to do and decided that I wanted to spread the good news of the many interesting fields of science. So I created a piece of clip art that says And now for a moment of SCIENCE and I have already posted it several times with a brief synopsis of a science story, discovery, or tidbit along with a link to science news sources. I decided to make an effort to post some science stuff every Sunday: Science Sunday. I like the alliteration.

Science Sunday

I feel better taking this small action, it's proactive and I don't have to feel so annoyed with the religious crap that permeates the lives and minds of so many people that I care about.

Want to join me? Feel free to take my clip art and use it on your FB or other social media. Just because we need more science and reason out there!

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

I've heard every one of these questions about a hundred and fifty times and I'm sure that I'll continue to hear them. So will you.

The funny thing is that homeschool seems so natural and normal to me that these questions do nothing to challenge me. All the questions do for me is suggest that the questioner doesn't really understand homeschool. And that's OK.

A few months ago I posted a bit about John getting his driver's permit. He is kind of a lucky kid because he was able to drive in another country, a country that totally drives on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road! Even though he was quite young (12-13 ish) while we were in Australia I had him get behind the wheel a bit (in a very safe spot) and drive just so that he could have the experience of driving there. Elizabeth did too.

So John has had his permit for several months and he's been driving both with me and with his dad. My husband will take John driving on the road and I'll take him on safer back roads. We also spend time reading Rules of the Road. As we drive we talk about right of way, roadway signs, cautions, emergency procedures, city and country driving, parking, driving requirements, map reading, GPS, mapquest, operating the car, gas and oil, and all of the what not that a knowledgeable driver needs to know.

Today John started something new.

CONGRATULATIONSMe!

A couple of years ago Elizabeth chose to take driver's ed through the local high school district so John wanted to give it a try too. This morning he started his first class, the first of two weeks worth of classes. Three hours a day for eight days. After three hours of school, his FIRST EVER CLASS IN A SCHOOL he had this to say:

He laughed about the so-called instruction. He laughed about the outdated driving simulator. He laughed about the way the class was dictated by the instructor. He felt that the instruction itself was very boring and the students were used to the boredom. The two classrooms that his class visited were both small rooms with too many kids in them. He found it difficult to focus because the instructor was either droning or being annoyed with students who were talking. Overall John was not at all impressed with the school. But he did feel that most of the kids in his class were perfectly nice and well-"behaved" during classes.

How do we Driver's Ed?We use all resources available to us. We drive, discuss, learn as we do, use our state's free driving book from the DMV, and we took the unessential driver's ed through the school district.

About Karen

I'm an atheist parent!

I am a Midwestern American, very open atheist, secular humanist, science lover, cohost of The Secular Parents on the SecularTv channel on Youtube, and I'm mum to two amazing human beings (ages 20 and 17).

We homeschooled for over twelve years. Now I'm entering into my "empty nest" years...

I enjoy reading and movies, astronomy, photography, travel, and being with the people I love.I want to believe in the inherent goodness of people.Sometimes that's really hard.

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